couldn’t get past the reminder that both her baby and her baby’s father were in danger.
More shots.
They were all still centered near the front of the house. By the staircase, she guessed. Again, much too close to Clayton.
Judging from the rhythm of the shots, it wasn’t just their attacker firing, but also Clayton returning fire. It sickened her to think of him being in the middle of a gunfight, and she prayed at least one of his brothers was there with him for backup.
Even with the deafening sound of the bullets, Lenora heard something else. Something she definitely didn’t want to hear.
The doorknob rattled.
She hoped it was just a vibration from the shots, but then it jerked violently. No vibration. Someone was trying to get inside the bedroom.
“Clayton?” she risked asking. She scurried to the opposite side of the room, just in case the person on the other side was about to send a bullet in the direction of her voice.
“Stay down!” Clayton shouted to her.
It definitely wasn’t him outside the door. Judging from the sound of his warning, he was still near the stairs. And unless the gunman was both shooting at Clayton and trying to get into the room with her, that meant there were two attackers.
At least.
God knew how many men had been sent after them to finish a job that’d been started months ago at the diner.
Another sound shot through the room. Not bullets. But the ring of the house phone. She didn’t dare risk answering it, because it could be a trick to pinpoint her location. After nearly a dozen rings, the phone finally went silent.
There were more gunshots, and someone shouted something that she couldn’t make out. Not Clayton’s voice, but not a stranger’s, either. She thought it might have been Declan. Good. Maybe he was close enough to Clayton to help him put an end to this.
The doorknob rattled again, and Lenora moved to the far corner of the room, near the adjoining bath. There were no windows in there. No way to escape, either, once she was inside, but if the shooter made it through the door, she might be able to lock herself in so she could be in a better position to return fire.
Not that she wanted to do that.
But she wasn’t just going to stand there and let someone gun her down, either.
Another rattle of the doorknob, and she heard the sharp sound of someone kicking at the wood. It took several hard kicks, and the hinges seemed to groan. When they gave way, the door flew against the wall.
The person came inside.
Lenora made a split-second assessment of the person who’d just knocked down the door. It wasn’t Clayton or any of his family. It was someone dressed all in black, wearing a ski mask, and what the clothes and mask didn’t conceal, the dark hallway did. She had no idea who this person was.
But she fired.
Not a kill shot, but she went for his shooting hand.
She missed.
The attacker was already moving to the side before she pulled the trigger, so her shot slammed into the jamb, right where he’d been just moments earlier. The person landed on the floor, out of her line of sight. Which meant she was out of his, too, but that wouldn’t last for long.
“Lenora!” Clayton called out.
The hail of gunfire in the hall became even more fierce. Louder. Practically nonstop. Probably because Clayton was trying to fight his way to her. Lenora prayed he could do that, but she had to take measures of her own just in case one of their attackers managed to hold him at bay.
“I’m okay,” she shouted back to Clayton, but before she even said the second word, Lenora was already on the move. From the corner and into the bath.
It wasn’t a second too soon.
The shot came directly at her, and it put her heart right in her throat. She ducked deeper into the bathroom and tried to pick through the gunfire to try to hear her attacker approaching.
But that wasn’t what she heard.
She heard Clayton cursing through the bursts of gunfire. There was also a lot of movement. Not just in the bedroom, where she figured her attacker was closing in on her. But this movement was coming from the hall. Frantic footsteps. Shouts and more bullets.
Lenora glanced out to see if she could figure out what was going on, but another bullet came right at her. She had no choice but to pull back. Thankfully,